oh, well that helps clear this up. if they're just silly, mindless robots (they're not parker; they at least have ai. please...), then this'll be a piece of cake. no more squatting in the bushes for the two of them. they just need to play it safe, keep low, and avoid any weird sensors their bodies might have. 

"oh, shit, don't sweat it," she says and claps a meaty hand on his shoulder. if anyone gets hating 'fieldwork,' she does. it's like a negative pavlovian response for her at this point. nomi, darlingly, says 'babe, we're going out to do some fieldwork' and inside part of her dies. 

but her fingers tighten, just a smidge, when he says she loaned him space. he hasn't checked in with her and why, does she know her?

"uhyeah, that's my wife-irlfriend. girlfriend." HUH? 

???

she ignores that. blazes right past that. yanks her hand back and follows him doggedly when he veers off the path. amulius has thoughts on being called firebird, but she doesn't even notice the annoyed clicking of his beaky muzzle. 

"anyway, if you're goin' where the science is, she's prob'ly there. but don't worry. i'm like, grade a bodyguard material. certified scientist protector. nomes said it was impressive when i told her i beat the head of an iron - what'd she call it...iron boulder! yeah, gave it a good thump 'n made it mine.

"oh, fuck, what's that?"

she asks and points at a weird, big dog lapping at a stream.

Rhys Collins
_XtCX4Tr

☉

"gengar are boring? that's the hottest take i've ever heard." creepy little gremlin fucks. she's seen them eat whole limbs before. used to work with someone way back in the day who had one of 'em and he liked to get creative with it. 

still gives her the heebie jeebies. miss her with ghost-types!

poor remoraid. what has it ever done to deserve so much hate? granted, it does have a weird amount of junk in its trunk, if she's remembering correctly. she can't even pull up a picture of it 'cause, again, no signal. not only is she eons away from nomi, she can't even check google.

but she sees it, in her head, inexplicably. sees the unown and the remoraid with its thick ass and the way they do kind of fit over one another. 

"you say prolly, but hoenn's weird as fuck. maybe god hid her lil' cherubs in a fish." except that's not what happened and she knows that. nomi's explained it to her before. about seeing the beginning and the middle and the end of everything. about how the unown are the eyes and word of god. 

"my scientist would," she says and then narrows her eyes at him. at the question. "you're not tryna get in nomes' pants, are ya?" 

she cracks her knuckles.

Shred

☉

parker has said it before: rocket's full of loonies. and not heehoo haha looney fuckin' tunes with their cute, what's up, docs and the sexual awakening that was lola bunny; but like an abridged version. the tasmanian devil on crack. like elmer fudd spraying brains and screaming about glory and massively fucking over the entire universe because he just can't play nice and work with - 

she needs to stop watching cartoons while she listens to nomi rant about her newest obsession. 

said newest obsession is starting to seriously irritate her right now. nomes has been down here, somewhere, for hours, and parker's had to deal with the most fucked up donphans she's ever seen, the shadow master himself, and shenanigans that belong in a b-grade horror movie. 

and porky the pig here, true to character, hasn't shut up. honestly, she's been so in over her head with all this, all the fucking rocket faces have started to blur together. she has one end-goal: find her minx, but that's proving more and more difficult and -

"holy fuck, what?" her brain boings back to the one-sided convo she was absolutely listening to 'cause that shit is hilarious. 

"let a girl love a fish. those fuckers are cute. you look at 'em and i bet they're just thinking doo-^da-doo-doo da-doo-doo-_doo."

he was at the rocket holiday party. most of the night's a blur. she discarded a lot of it to focus on what was important - tugging the strings of nomi's little bow and having her way with her in the supply closet. 

she's a moony-eyed puppy for the dame and as far as she knows, it's not supposed to be secret. besides, parker's preeeeetty sure they've gotten some hr complaints but that hasn't stopped nomi from letting parker lock the door to her office and shove everything off her desk.

"yeah." she barks a sudden laugh. "their eyes are kinda the same. the remoraid 'n the unown. nomes'd probably love those stupid fish. dude, what if unown are, like, remoraid eyes?"

Shred

☉

"but your bush is so nice and full and do you use conditione - fuck." she ducks down as the rumbling robot stops, red lights blinking, and when fear takes a shit right on her heart, it finally starts up again. she straightens, pink locks tangled with brambles and leaves, and gives the aggravated man and his scary ghost fox a bit of distance. 

"do they like, follow a pathing track?" she asks. "like npcs?"

'cause then it's just about figuring out what that path is and sneaking through it. stealth mission time! except parker's never been good at those sections in any game; halfway through, she always alerts the enemies anyway and ends up slaughtering them. 

more fun that way, honestly. 

"sheesh, who pissed in your cheerios? also wait, are you in the science wing? you know nomes? d'you know where she is?"

no more rumbles. she takes a tentative step out, shakes off some twigs, and looks at her uneasy blaziken. 

"don't worry. we're smarter 'an these tin cans."

Rhys Collins
TYAu5xme

☉

no cell service, of fucking course, but her stupid rocket-issued beeper works just fine. she doesn't know what any of the strings of beeps means. she had half a mind to toss it to the side as soon as she got it and the slap on the ass with the follow-up FOR THE GLORY OF ROCKET. 

so she doesn't know that beep-beep-beep-beep means 'warning! enemies are nearby!'

amulius doesn't need some out of date pager tech to tell him that though, because he warbles a warning to parker and her companion right before they hear a crashing sound a quarter mile to their left. 

"uhhh, the fuck was that?" she says, steel-blue eyes landing incredulously on alba. 

Alba Evovae
lHqwZbji

☉

amulius is still fluffy. the chicken's been put on edge because parker was put on edge by the mister shadow boss man himself. each step they took down through the fucking chasm reminded her of his stupid miasma and she'd hidden it, of course. like she always does. 

behind snappy remarks and a hell of a lot of i don't give a shit attitude. 

but that's exhausting and she's grumpy and WHERE IS HER GIRLFRIEND?

cell service!! doesn't work!! down here!! apparently!! none of her raunchy texts went through. none of her baby i miss you texts went through. and it's too fucking dangerous to explore alone soooo. 

"this shit's bananas," she says to her companion while she crouches down in a bush and the biggest motherfucking donphan she's ever seen in her LIFE rolls by. 

Rhys Collins
Uyya7Xq1

☉

maisey slobbers over her rubber ball at their feet. parker threw it a couple times on their way into the park, but now she's not going anywhere near it. if she can convince her to drop it longer than .1 second, she'll kick it, but avery should be here any minute. 

"huh?" she says, lifting her gaze from her adorable pink fur baby and up to her adorable pink haired baby. 

"oh, i told her the important parts. your eyeballs won't scare her or whatever. she'll probs think they're cool. but i told her how hot you are and also how smart, but i think she's like, 'well how smart can she be' because she's the smart one, not me, y'know? but like uber duber smart and oh, hey, there she is. 

"SIS! WE'RE OVER HERE, FUCKO!"

a waspish mother shoots them a dirty look and shepherds her kid away from them. 

Naomi Sato avery jones

☉

in truth, she doesn't know how much it is, just that it's slowly been collecting over years and years and years. she was smart about it. split the money from her jobs and calculated enough on paper, lived off cheap food and in this shithole apartment so she could squirrel away and scrape and one day, eventually, have enough to start a new life. 

on her own, away from rocket, but that's out of the question now, and this is as good a new life as any. she wouldn't trade it for the world.

still, nomi's awe makes her scratch the back of her neck and look a bit embarrassed. 

"yeah. useda hide bills 'n groc'ry money from our pa like this. kinda stuck."

Naomi Sato

☉

honestly, now that she's thinking about it, she probably could have texted nomi for a ride on the back of kfc. but also she's busy and parker needs to prove she can handle herself. she's gotta prove she's not deadweight; that she actually brings something to the table. 

she takes one look down the chasm and thinks fuck. 

oooooooooh, first name basis? some of her trepidation goes away. some of the alarm bells start ringing. she thinks, can't let my guard down, but then she realizes she doesn't really gotta. defection? all thought of it gone. happy life being a happy-go-lucky league civilian? gone. 

nomi bleeds rocket so parker bleeds rocket too. 

"yeahno," she says honestly. "i mean, 'less ya count when that bigass popsicle made this place or whatever. i fell in here an' beat the shit outta a weird metal bull. you see those things?" she uses her hands to make a terrible likeness to iron crown's horn. 

"nice ambiance," she says as purple flames flicker in front of them. amulius doesn't seem very impressed. he does look a bit floofier than usual though.

the delphox puts him on edge.

Cillian Quinn
UhcBUsQm

☉

she roped KING WAYLAND into going down there to protect Naomi Sato. and she doesn't doubt he can do it for a minute. if anything, he might be a better fuckin' bodyguard than she is. he's got blood on his hands in ways she doesn't an' that means something. 

her thumb rubs off some coppery flakes from permanently bruised knuckles. rocket got its money and now that she's off duty, she's back on duty, and that means getting a rendezvous with some rocket fuck who's big enough and bad enough to get her where nomi is. 

"mister boss maaaaan," she says with a shit-eating grin as she ducks under a crystal, amulius at her heels. 

Cillian Quinn

☉